SOURCE: "The Curious Incident of the Dog," in Spectator, Vol. 270, No. 8572, October 24, 1992, p. 34.

In the following review, Brookner concentrates on gothic aspects of The Mist in the Mirror, admiring the novel's "certain pluckiness of tone."

Yet another Victorian pastiche, this time by Susan Hill in her Gothic or ghost story mode. I say Victorian, though the period is uncertain. The stately clubman's tone is reminiscent of Henry James, while the multitudinous weather systems hint at Dickens: there is a transparent borrowing of the famous description of fog in the first chapter of Bleak House, although in this instance the identical syntax is applied to rain. As the unnamed narrator strides through a murky London he seems to be in Conan Doyle country; later on, the hero is conveyed by steam trains, although a telephone number is given. All in all, a rather too insistent nudging of one's instant...